Really stretching the argument

Abortion: why it’s the ultimate motherly act-Comment-Columnists-Caitlin Moran-TimesOnline

This column from last week in The Times really stretches one part of the pro-choice argument 'til it's micron thin:

....what I do believe to be sacred — and, indeed, more useful to the earth as a whole — is trying to ensure that there are as few unbalanced, destructive people as possible. By whatever rationale you use, ending a pregnancy 12 weeks into gestation is incalculably more moral than bringing an unwanted child into this world. Or a child that, through no fault of its own, would be the destructor of a marriage, a family, a parent. It’s fairly inarguable to say that unhappy children, who then grew into very angry adults, have caused the great majority of mankind’s miseries. If psychoanalysis has, somewhat brutally, laid the responsibility for mental disorders at parents’ doors, the least we can do is to tip our hats to women aware enough not to create those troubled people in the first place.

This paragraph leaves open so many obvious lines of attack, I can't even be bothered starting.

The author is (somewhat like Aussie blogger Audrey ) also taking the line that women should admit that having an abortion is often an easy decision. Moran writes:

Last year I had an abortion, and I can honestly say it was one of the least difficult decisions of my life. I’m not being flippant when I say it took me longer to decide what work-tops to have in the kitchen than whether I was prepared to spend the rest of my life being responsible for a further human being. I knew I would see my existing two daughters less, my husband less, my career would be hamstrung and, most importantly of all, I was just too tired to do it all again.

I don't mind this admission, because I think most pro-life-ish people like me have always guessed or known from experience that it was true for a significant number of women. The "women never take the decision lightly" line is, I think, deployed as a tactic designed to stop detailed debate, particularly if it is a man with whom the argument is being conducted.

[Of course, the pro-life movement also uses the "women always suffer" line to its own ends, by (I think) inflating the problem of depression or other medical conditions following abortion.]

The point is that the mere question of how difficult a moral decision was (or wasn't) for some people is never really the answer to the question of whether it was the right decision.